Between Venezuela and Columbia sits Los Llanos, a vast tropical grassland; home to the Whistler, El Silbon. If by chance his nocturnal wanderings bring him to your door, listen for his mournful tune. It is said that the closer he sounds, the further away he is. Though if his song is distant, beware, for he is close.
Once there was a petulant and mollycoddled boy who lived with his mother, father, and grandfather. His parents’ love blinded them to his dark nature and caused them to endlessly indulge his whimsical demands. This lack of want served to escalate the boy’s fancies, leading to ever more extravagant desires. On a hunting trip with his father, he insisted that his father bring him a deer, stating that the animal was concealed in the nearby forest. While his father searched for the deer, the boy took the opportunity to murder him with a knife, disemboweling him. When he returned home, alone, he commanded his mother to cook the entrails. Worried that her husband had not returned, his mother asked where he had gotten the meat. The boy confessed, “Father gave it to me.”
His grandfather was enraged by this and tied him to a tree, whipping him till the flesh flayed from his back. He then made the boy take him to his father’s corpse to collect his bones, depositing them in a large grain sack. As further recompense, his grandfather exiled him, cursing him to carry the sack, forever reminded of his crimes.
It is said that El Silbon appears emaciated, almost skeletal, and exceptionally tall. Some say he prefers drunkards and womanizers, stalking them on dark roads and lonely places. Others claim he enters homes in the hours before dawn, dumping his sack of bones on the bedroom floors of his victims, quietly counting them. If you wake before he finishes his counting, then you will be spared. If not, your bones will be collected and added to his sack.
